Plastic Recycling Technology is improving all the time – and new manufacturing technology could reduce the amount of plastic waste further still.
Plastic has different functional properties. It’s flexible, transparent, thermally and electrically insulating, water resistant, and can be manufactured cheaply at large-scale. Plastic can be made in all sorts of shapes, colours, and sizes. The one thing that the market can’t regulate is the product’s end-of-life once it’s taken home, meaning that it becomes the consumers’ responsibility. Indeed, companies leave waste management to consumers, although it should be the other way around. For the world to reap the benefits of this material without environmental damage, it’s crucial to make it easier for individuals to dispose of and recycle plastic responsibly. This can help reduce emissions of gases that absorb heat and contribute to the greenhouse effect.
Is It True That Not All Plastic Can Be Recycled?
The recycling systems of today can recover some of the used plastics, yet the rest is put into the landfills, remaining unchanged or degrading into fragments that remain as they are or turn into gaseous products. Therefore, investments in new technologies that can increase the types and amount of plastic that can be recycled are of the essence. It’s called advanced recycling, a process that provides the means to recycle plastic items that wouldn’t normally be recycled, turning the polymers back into their original molecules so that they can be used time and time again. A research consortium has recently been awarded £300,000 of funding from Innovate UK, part of the UK Research and Innovation, to tackle the plastic problem.
The University of Birmingham and Stopford Are Working to Deliver a Viable Way of Recycling More Plastic
The University of Birmingham currently leads research to ascertain the global magnitude of plastic pollution and uncover new ways of manufacturing, reusing, and recycling plastic to lessen its impact on the environment. There’s an urgent need to identify new ways of dealing with plastic, especially when it reaches the end of its lifetime. According to Statista, UK households throw away 100 billion pieces of plastic packaging per year. We lack the necessary infrastructure to handle the gigantic amounts of plastic waste, so the government has been urged to invest in recycling infrastructure and new technologies. Most recycled plastic is of lower quality after being processed.
Stopford, an engineering design and project management consultancy firm rendering its services to the renewable energy industry, has been working side by side with the technologists from the University of Birmingham to develop a new plastic recycling technology, which delivers a better proportion of high-value recycled plastic with fewer emissions. The advanced recycling process will eliminate sources of fossil fuel origin as raw material and ensure plastic never becomes waste or pollution. The recycling industry is nascent as regards scaling the technology into commercial plants and requires further investigation, not to mention considerable investment. Plastic material with food residue can be transformed into high-value chemicals for use as feedstock.
Funding has been awarded by Innovate UK, which supports business-led innovation across sectors, technologies, and UK regions, to adapt the technology to PET plastic waste, whose excessive presence is a major environmental concern. The new plastic recycling technology leverages hot compressed water as a green solvent for the bulk depolymerization of waste plastics; the plastics produced this way are much like those made from traditional fossil fuel resources in terms of quality. It’s possible to recycle contaminated and degraded plastic, incentivizing large-scale valorisation of plastic waste. Supercritical water technology is the answer to the challenge posed by the recycling of stubborn, complex, and hazardous waste.
Recycled PET Is Perfectly Safe for Use in Food Packaging
Polyethylene terephthalate, PET for short, is used to make water bottles, shampoo containers, plastic cups, and so on. Not only is PET recyclable, but it’s also the most recycled plastic in the world; it can be easily washed and melted down for use in lower-grade products. There are different machines for baling that can reduce the volume of waste by 90%, optimising the time spent on disposal and reducing waste management costs. Every year, billions of pet bottles are collected across Europe. The success of a collection scheme lies in the ability to take full advantage of this one-of-a-kind material – the strong recycling performance of PET gives it a reputation as a circular plastic system.
The UK Invests £3.2 Million To Improve the Use & Management of Plastic Packaging
UK Research and Innovation launched the Smart Sustainable Plastic Packaging Challenge in 2020 to really deliver on innovation and enhance the UK’s ability to cut back on the amount of plastic packaging waste it generates. Businesses and organisations can apply for a share of up to £3.2 million for projects that improve recycling efforts with smart, sustainable packaging design. Beneficial information and outputs must be disclosed to all stakeholders. Undoubtedly, it’s one of the most ambitious initiatives to date in plastics research and innovation, having created a portfolio of ground-breaking research projects that have the potential to tackle plastic pollution. It complements ongoing work.
A great many projects are breaking away from traditional approaches to research and innovation, reducing the use of plastic and helping achieve sustainability goals. More fund winners will stimulate more reuse and refill in day-to-day grocery shopping and food and drinks consumed on the run, transforming the throwaway economy into one that eliminates waste. The technologies are poised for rapid growth and can lead down the path to the circular economy, which plays an essential role in helping tackle challenges like biodiversity loss and climate change. The business opportunity is vast because it can create new revenue streams by offering innovative products and services.
Conclusion
All in all, we’re dedicated to alleviating the upcoming challenges with science, engineering, and lots of work. It’s possible to overcome the existing limitations of recycling processes, but new policies need to be considered alongside new technologies. The years ahead promise a range of new developments, innovations, and trends that will make the world greener, improving the state of the environment by taking direct action to reduce global warming.
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